[3] His father Augustine Leftwich (1712-1795) had moved westward from New Kent County in Virginia's Tidewater region into the Piedmont after securing a royal land grant, and married at least twice.
Jabez was the youngest of his surviving sons, most of whom distinguished themselves in the American Revolutionary War.
Within two years after his congressional term expired in 1825, Leftwich moved to Madison County, Alabama, where he was a farmer and merchant.
[7] Shortly before his wife's death in 1846 after a protracted illness of several months, they moved to Franklin County, Alabama in the Russell Valley and lived in the household of their daughter Betsey, who had married William Drake.
Their sister Permelia had married Andrew Drake but predeceased her mother, dying in childbirth in 1829.
[8][9] His namesake grandson Col. Jabez Leftwich Drake (1832=1864) died in the Battle of Peachtree Creek near Atlanta.